Weekend Update

This should really be titled the weekend of pure decadence. I ate too much.

Friday
Started with our NoPo date night at DiPrima Dolci. I was so excited to finally try their Fri/Sat night menu. Traffic was threatening my great mood, but I didn't let it get to me--I had a date. We get to the bakery (restaurant, for the night) and it's busy enough, but there were plenty of tables. We ordered a bottle of Allegrini Valpolicella and the chef's choice antipasti. I was hungry, but not starving, and ready to enjoy a peaceful evening of dining. The antipasti was delicious. It was pretty simple--cured meats, cheeses, olives--but paired with the delicious homemade bread, it was perfect. Shawn ordered the chicken parmesan (surprise, surprise--it's his favorite), despite the fact that a meatball lasagna was on special. I ordered the spicy shrimp with artichoke hearts over linguine. Given the two items I mentioned besides my shrimp, would you think to order shrimp? I mean, most of the menu consisted of your basic, NY-style Italian dishes--meatballs, pasta, lasagna, chicken parm. Shrimp? I ordered wrong. The dishes came out and I immediately knew it. My shrimp were overcooked and not at all spicy. The artichokes were pretty good, but not enough to make up for the lack of flavor in the shrimp and pasta. Overall, very disappointing. Shawn, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed his meal. I think if we go back it'll be just for antipasti and some wine.

After dinner we moved down the street to Yetti's, our local wine bar. It's a very casual atmosphere--not pretentious in the least. And best of all, when I walked in, they were playing Belle & Sebastian. Then it was the Decemberists. The music has been consistently good at that place. Love it. There was also a couple on what appeared to be a first date at the table next to us, so that provided a little extra entertainment. Just a warning...if you are on a first date and we are seated close to you, bet on the fact that I'll be trying to catch pieces of your conversation. I'm just saying...

Saturday
Saturday was a very busy day. I decided after my 8 mile run that I deserved to eat Mexican food. I met a few gals from the gym for dinner at Casa Colima. I wasn't expecting much going to a restaurant in the middle of Hillsdale shopping center, but I was pleasantly surprised. While it's not the best Mexican food I've ever had, it's hardly an Azteca. I ordered the pork carnitas plate and was shocked by the amount of meat on my plate. I feel like I barely touched it. It was very tender and flavorful...even better on Monday when I ate the leftovers.

I ended my evening meeting Shawn and our local dive bar, George's Corner Tavern. Ah, George's. I can finally sit in there for more than a half hour since Portland bars went smoke free. This isn't the kind of Portland dive bar that has been overrun with hipsters and hangs on the dive bar thread, simply by reputation. It's right off the MAX line on Interstate, if that helps to describe it. This is the kind of place that you see a nicely dressed man sitting next to an old, grungy man in a leather jacket...because that's who was there Saturday. And rap, country, and metal rotate on the jukebox. And, in jest, a customer will pull a knife on another customer, be told that there's only love in here, and still be served a whiskey. Ah, George's. Oh, we also won the free trivia game while we were there.

Sunday
Our Christmas gift to Michael this past year was to take him out to dim sum and buy him new knives from Fubonn (best knife I've ever owned for a mere $3.98). So where did we go? Clearly Wong's King Seafood Kitchen on SE Division. My god the food is good there. We waited for a little over a half hour, which isn't too bad for a Sunday. The best thing about dim sum is when you sit, you eat. This was Shawn's first experience. While it wasn't a bad one, I don't think we'll be going back anytime soon.

Amazingly enough, we were able to eat dinner that night. I was still pretty full, so I didn't eat much. I made vegetarian chili, which was delicious and will fortunately enjoy quite a few more times as we barely made a dent in it.

Of all the things I said I was going to do this weekend (eat out, clean, run 8 miles, go grocery shopping, make bread), the only thing that wasn't accomplished was the bread making. Good thing we got a $2 off coupon from PGE for a loaf of bread from Ken's artisan bakery. We got the country brown. I'm getting good, but it'll be a long time before I'm Ken's-good.

Fin de Semana

Hooray! It's almost the weekend. I have some wonderful plans ahead, too...

Tonight, Shawn and I are having a "NoPo Date Night." We're going to try out the more formal dinner at Di Prima Dolci, the Italian Bakery in our neighborhood, and top it off with wine at the wine bar down the street, Yetti's. It's a semi-celebration for our upcoming four year anniversary since we'll be busy the rest of the month!

Saturday, I'm heading out to Casa Colima for a girl's night with some friends from the TTN studio. I am excited for Mexican food. I've never been there, but apparently there is a special dining night that benefits SW Hope Feed the Hungry campaign and a portion of what we spend there will be donated to feed the hungry. Sounds good to me! They also boast the biggest margaritas in town, but since I'm not one for that particular drink, I'll be opting for the Dos Equis.

Sunday, Shawn and I are taking our friend Michael out for his Christmas gift, which was dim sum at Wong King's Seafood Kitchen in SE, then on to Fubonn to pick up some much-needed knives. Oh, I just love dim sum and have been waiting to go back to this restaurant for ages.

This should really make up for all that money I've been saving by not eating out. Oy.

I also plan on making a multigrain loaf of sandwich bread, running 8 miles, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, and somehow relaxing. We'll see how that goes.

No bake weekend

Sad. I meant to make multigrain bread yesterday, but when I got back from my run, soaked, cold, and tired, it just wasn't happening. I'm about 2 weeks away from my 15k race for the Shamrock Run, so the running schedule is getting a little longer and harder.

I promise that I'll have a bread post next week though! However, this is not solely a bread blog, or I would've named it such. I did do some cooking over the weekend. I'm sure everyone who has read this blog more than once knows I have a small obsession with America's Test Kitchen cook books. And with good reason. I have made their whole grain mustard pan sauce for chicken before and the high-fat version is, of course, to die for. But this weekend I tried the low-fat version from the Best Light Recipes book and I swear, there is no difference. At about half the fat and a third of the calories, I think I'll be using that sauce from now on. The best part, to me, is that besides being healthier, there aren't any weird ingredients involved. I have a problem with recipes that have you sub extra sugar or salt to cover up the fact that you've taken fat out. Hence why I'm obsessed with the test kitchen.

Adventures in flatbread

We were invited to our friends Paul and Ann's house for dinner on Saturday night to celebrate (officially) Michael's 35th birthday, and to talk a bit about house sitting for them while they are in Africa (so jealous). We were in charge of salad, and Michael tipped us off that Paul would be preparing lamb skewers. I found a Mediterranean-style salad in my Test Kitchen cook book with radicchio, romaine, chickpeas, feta, and a basic balsalmic vinaigrette. I took a risk and decided to try out flatbread, as well. I didn't tell anyone, besides Shawn, that I was going to attempt it, just in case it was a disaster.

Lo and behold, it turns out I can make flatbread. And got some rave reviews.

The Birthday Cheesecakes

Friday night I received a rare and wonderful gift...a night at home alone. Not that I don't adore spending time with my honey at home, but I pretty much never get the house to myself. Since I had some serious baking work to do, I offered a suggestion to Shawn that he go out. And he did. Nice boy. I threw on my apron, my music, and got to work.

My friend Michael once told me this nice story of how his mom (who has passed on now) used to make and send him a cheesecake every year for his birthday when he was in college. I thought it was such a sweet tradition that I decided I would take it over. However, I've been a slacker. I made one once a few years ago and haven't since. I also make a birthday cheesecake for our friend, Aric, who is one of Shawn's best friends from childhood that now lives here in P-town. Being from NY, he is very picky about his cheesecake. I consider it a major compliment that he lusts for my cheesecake so. Michael's birthday was on Saturday, and I still owed Aric his treat from December, so I thought I'd just get them both out of the way in one night.

I decided to try out the Test Kitchen Baking Book's version of NY cheesecake. I've tried a variety of recipes from the Internet. While they have all turned out just fine, it was time to settle on one. It was quite interesting, amongst the chaotic Valentine-gift/card buying to be buying 5 lbs. of cream cheese--probably not what the cashier was expecting the evening before the big holiday. I went home, ate dinner, watched a little tv with Shawn, and then sent him on his way.

I probably should have looked a little more carefully at the recipe. Being a very dry, dense cheesecake, this recipe called for a very low heat, slow cooking time. I started at 8pm. Already my first oops. My next issue was that my mixer couldn't handle all 5 lbs of cream cheese at once, but I had already combined the 12 eggs and 4 egg yolks into one container. This only proved to be a problem when I got to the second cheesecake and discovered that, despite my best efforts to separate out 6 eggs and 2 yolks, I had fallen a little short on whites in cheesecake #1.

Mixing the first batch of cheesecake:

Cheesecake #1 (plain NY) for Aric, prebake:Cheesecake #2 (marbled) for Michael:
Cheesecake #1 finished:
I haven't gotten the reports back yet, but both recipients seemed very happy when they saw what I had made. Shawn tried his best to get me to cut a piece for him, but no luck. I had already delayed them for months, even years, so I figured I probably needed to give them whole cheesecakes.

Oh, and I finally did something besides bake bread! Although I did make cream biscuits last night.

Baking weekend

This weekend we hosted our friends, the Rices, for a card night at our place. We try to plan a dinner at one of our houses about once a month (it usually ends up being every two months). Eve-Maridy and I are both big foodies, so it gives us a chance to experiment with recipes for each other. The boys are just happy to be fed a good dinner and hang out, so it works out nicely.

Since it was my turn for the first time in a while, I wanted to do something special. The menu:
Crisp Winter Lettuces with Warm Sweet-and-Sharp Dressing
Homemade baguettes (America's Test Kitchen Family Baking book)
Steak with red wine pan sauce (America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook)
Low fat Scalloped potatoes (America's Test Kitchen Best Light Recipes)
Fallen Chocolate Cake (America's Test Kitchen Family Baking book) with raspberry coulis and lightly sweetened cocoa whipped cream (me)

As you can tell, I love me some America's Test Kitchen. I use those books for everything. Everything turned out really well. I did make a small error with the salads and halved the bacon, but not the rest of the ingredients. It turned out fine, but not as thick as I would have liked. The cooking vinegar may have also irritated my lungs because now I have this horrible cough.

The baguettes were a success! It was my first time working with a sponge and I was a little worried. Luckily I knew I could always run down to the bakery, DiPrima Dolci, if they didn't work out. The recipe yields two 15" baguettes, and unfortunately I only have a 13" baking stone. So, I cut one of them in half, and threw the other in the refrigerator to finish rising and bake the next day.

The chocolate cake, on the other hand, was quite easy and turned out delicious. I didn't have individual ramekins, so I ended up using my springform pan to do one big cake. No matter, it was yummy either way. Although, I do need to get a thermometer for my oven because I think it runs a little hot.

The cake (had a little trouble removing from the pan):

The second round of baguettes (didn't get a picture of the first one):I think my fear of yeast is slowly starting to dissipate...

Starting over...Welcome to the Evolving Epicurean!

As with most things in life, I started this blog with the intention of writing about my great adventures traveling and eating, but it took a very different turn and became all about food. I would love to travel more, but right now I'm just trying to pay off bills and save money to do so.

On that note, I would like to introduce the revised theme to this blog...it's all about food. As you may have noticed from past posts, I have a bit of an obsession with food. I love to eat it, make it, bake it, serve it, and even take pictures of it.

Obviously since I've had little to talk about besides food, anyone who has been reading this blog won't notice much of a difference. I have been experimenting more in the kitchen and am very excited to share my continual journey to becoming a better cook, baker, and overall foodie.